CONCORD — The Mt. Diablo school board is exploring the feasibility of reopening Holbrook Elementary and Glenbrook Middle schools, which closed four years ago.

Although the two campuses are located near the Concord Naval Weapons Station, school board president Cheryl Hansen said the decision to reopen the schools should not hinge on the city’s plans to build up to 12,272 housing units on the property over the next 20 years.

“My motivation from the beginning was whether or not we’re serving the neighborhoods and students the best we can,” said Hansen, who opposed closing the schools.

In a presentation to the board earlier this week, Jeff McDaniel, executive director of operations, said it would cost $7.4 million to reopen the two schools, more than half of which would pay for one-time expenses such as new library books, technology, kitchen upgrades, furniture and air conditioning.

Based on the projected attendance from a 2009-2010 districtwide demographics study, 329 students would return to Holbrook, 100 fewer than were enrolled when it closed in 2011, McDaniel said. The school would require 14 teachers and a principal, support staff, custodians and food service workers for a total cost of $2.6 million.

But the district would need to add only about $1.2 million to the budget because the remainder would come from shifting 14 teachers currently working at other schools back to Holbrook.

The elementary campus also needs new library books, copy machines, televisions plus $2.6 million in upgrades — including air conditioning, painting and roofing. The total cost to reopen Holbrook is $4.3 million, according to McDaniel.

Glenbrook would have a projected enrollment of 810 students, up from 535 when the school closed.

Administrators, 27 teachers and other staffers would cost the district about $4.4 million, which would be offset by the nearly $2.9 million the district is spending for teachers who are already on its payroll.

The school is in better physical shape than Holbrook is, McDaniel said, so it requires only $980,000 in upgrades.

It would cost the district about $3 million to reopen Glenbrook.

Board member Linda Mayo said it’s important that the board take into account the cost of providing counselors, nurses, librarians, music teachers, instruments and after-school sports at the schools.

“It’s exciting to open a new school and we want to make the schools as attractive as possible and make sure it’s equitable to other schools across the district,” Mayo said.

“So we need to make sure, if we’re going to reopen them, that these services, at a minimum, are available to the students that will attend these schools.”

Reopening Holbrook and Glenbrook could relieve the pressure on the schools that absorbed large numbers of students when they closed, such as Sun Terrace Elementary, which accepted 116 children, and El Dorado Middle which enrolled 257, Hansen pointed out.

Given the requirement to provide transitional kindergarten and reduce class sizes in the early grades, if the board opts to reopen the schools Hansen believes the district should consider offering a different program or structure, such as K-3.

“What it goes back to is exactly what it needs to be in the present and the future,” she said.

Since the projected attendance figures McDaniel presented at the meeting are based on five-year-old data, the board asked him to provide an estimate of the cost of a new demographics study at the next meeting.

"There is a general recognition that we don't need these military-style weapons in New Zealand, so it's very easy to win cross-party support for this," said Mark Mitchell, who was defense minister in the previous, center-right government and who supports the ban initiated by the center-left-led Labour Party.